Have You Ever Had a Choice? - The Illusion of Free Will

A Thought Experiment You Were Always Going to Read

Do we have free will?

News flash, you didn’t choose to read this. Wait, stay with me (and get ready for 'forty questions').

That moment when your brain decided to click, scroll, or engage - was it really you? Or was it just the inevitable outcome of a billion-year chain reaction?

From the Big Bang to this exact second, every atom in the universe has followed a pre-determined path. Everything that was ever going to happen, or ever will happen, flows from that singular moment - like a tapestry of cosmic inevitability.

And that includes you.

Every thought you’ve ever had, every decision you’ve ever made - what if they were never really yours to begin with?

So, BANG!

If that idea makes you want to argue or just messes with your head well… you were always going to feel that way.

Picture of a nebula in space - formed a few billions years after the big bang — Stardust - we are all made from it.

The Science of No Choice

The universe runs on cause and effect. Atoms don’t choose where to go - they just react. Your brain? Same deal.

Every action is just neurons firing in response to stimuli.
Your thoughts? Chemical reactions shaped by genetics and environment.
Your choices? Maybe just an elaborate trick your brain plays to keep you sane.

If that sounds bleak, don’t blame me - blame Pierre-Simon Laplace.

In 1814, he proposed Laplace’s Demon, a thought experiment suggesting that if someone knew the position and momentum of every particle in the universe, they could predict everything that would ever happen. Smart guy.
Baruch Spinoza argued that free will is just an illusion - we only believe in it because we have no clue what’s actually controlling us.
Modern neuroscience backs this up - some studies show that your brain makes decisions before "you" are even aware of them.

And if that’s true, then we must ask: What does that mean for everything else?

So, What Does This Mean for Life?

Is everyone just inevitable?

Well the study of 'voluntary actions' is hard to define, even through a narrow viewpoint so condiser;

Was Einstein a genius by choice? Or was he just the inevitable result of his brain chemistry, upbringing, and environment?

If he hadn’t existed, would physics have progressed exactly the same way, just with a different name on the equations? Maybe relativity was always going to be discovered - Einstein was just the biological machine that delivered it.

Was Shakespeare destined to write Hamlet, or was it just a matter of probability that someone, somewhere, would craft it?

If Darwin hadn’t theorised natural selection, would another biologist have stepped in?

Well, if Shakespeare and Einstein were inevitable, then surely Jack the Ripper was too? And if that’s the case, then what about moral failure?

And that’s a fun thought, isn’t it?

Besides, if everything - every molecule, every action, every fleeting thought - was set in motion at the dawn of time, then what do you think?

I don’t know, that’s for sure. My brain is utterly FUCT.

Crime and Morality: Are We Judging Robots?

So let’s run with it. If everything really is pre-determined, then what does that mean for crime and justice? Well;

We punish criminals because we assume they had a choice.
But what if their genetics, upbringing, and environment made their actions unavoidable? (It’s not too far a stretch from what we already know about causes of crime, is it?)

Therefore: Should we punish someone for being the inevitable result of their circumstances?

I mean, we already pretend our own bad decisions "weren’t really our fault" - why not extend the courtesy to everyone else?

Is crime even bad, or is it just meant to, well… ‘be’?

Consider Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, the infamous duo who committed a senseless murder in 1924, believing their superior intellect made them "above morality." Psychologists later dissected their privileged but neglectful upbringings and their obsession with Nietzschean philosophy. Could they have been anything other than what they became?

And this isn’t just philosophy. The legal system already acknowledges diminished responsibility in cases of severe mental illness. If someone commits a crime due to a disorder that impairs their ability to make rational choices, they are treated differently.

So, if we accept that mental illness can remove accountability, why don’t we extend that logic to all behaviour? After all, the brain of a criminal is just as much a product of cause-and-effect as the brain of the judge sentencing them and a ‘disorder’ could be anything, could it not?

Or should we just pretend free will is real because it makes sentencing paperwork easier?

We’re only really one step remove from what I’ve said previously about prayer and free will – are we now moving from contradiction to… well, something? (hah).

And yes, I’m starting to sound rather ‘out there’ but this piece (blog post) is an intended thought provoker, not a manifesto.

A picture of a confused woman. Pondering the meaning of life perhaps? — Yep, I'm confused too.

Personal Choice: Did You Ever Really Decide?

You think you chose your career, your partner, your beliefs and even what you had for breakfast.

But did you?

Your career (or lack of one) was shaped by your upbringing, social class, and opportunities you were given (or denied).
Your personality was pre-determined by a mix of genetic wiring and external influences.
Even your political and philosophical views were largely shaped by where and when you were born.
And your food preferences? Probably influenced by your early childhood, income level, the environment you find yourself in as it relates to how you look after yourself and probably whatever’s in the fridge that hasn’t expired.

If you were born in 16th-century China, do you think you'd be here with me, contemplating free will? Or would you be debating Confucian ethics over a cup of tea? If you were born in North Korea, would you even be allowed here on the internet?

How much of what you believe is truly yours, and how much of it was always going to be?

But hey - maybe I’m just overthinking it. (Like I had a choice.)

Counterpoints & The Great Rebuttal

“But I feel like I’m making choices!”

Sure, because your brain has to maintain that illusion to function. If you constantly felt like a passenger in your own body, you’d probably lose your mind. The illusion of control is necessary for survival. Well, so say I for the purposes of this… whatever this is.

“But quantum mechanics says randomness exists!”

Haha, alright smart-ass. Great, but randomness isn’t free will. If your brain’s decisions were truly random, that wouldn’t be free will - it’d be rolling the dice and hoping for the best. Chaos isn’t choice. Chaos is just a glitch in the matrix, or rather, chaos is chaos in action.

“So what’s the point of anything?”

Ah, the existential crisis kicks in. Welcome! But here’s the thing - just because free will might not exist doesn’t mean your life is meaningless.

Maybe meaning isn’t about "choosing" - maybe it’s about experiencing. And in actuality, if we discovered the true meaning of life, wouldn’t that then make life meaningless by default?

"Well, fortunately, the universe doesn’t care what I think.

Or what you think. Or what anyone thinks."

And frankly, that’s quite a relief - because if my thoughts shaped reality, we'd all be in deep trouble.

Final Challenge: Destroy the Box You’re Thinking In

You were always going to read this.

You’re made of star-dust that is billions of years old and the atoms in your brain were always going to process these words. Does anything even really matter? Well it has to on some level and yes, FUC it, YOU matter.

But what will you do next?

Fight it. Try to resist. Try to prove this entire argument wrong, sit aimlessly for hours in sheer despair?

But tell me - whose choice is that?

Now, go contemplate existence.

Or don’t.

Like it matters (see what I did there? ;) )

Ta'ra for now.

FUCT.

Oh, and if you fancy it.

Just in-case you’ve spiralled down an existential rabbit hole, here are some sources to keep you going further down and down and, yeah, down some more – good luck! (An no links this time, because I chose – or rather I was meant not to provide any. Perhaps you can choose to use a search engine…)

📖 Free Will – Sam Harris (2012) – A short but brutal takedown of the free will illusion.

📖 A History of Western Philosophy – Bertrand Russell – The deterministic roots of philosophy.

📖 Laplace’s Demon – Pierre-Simon Laplace – The thought experiment that crushed free will before you were even born.

📖 The Illusion of Conscious Will – Daniel Wegner – The science behind why your brain convinces you that you're in control.